Perhaps if you ask Rich he might help with this. All I can say is that a healthy person is not meant to have high d-lactate. It causes symptoms very similar to CFS and should be ruled out. However testing serum may be problematic as it is not part of routine testing, and path labs sometimes do not have the assay available.

Testing urine would show up high total lactate, which would indicate a need to further test for d-lactate. Urine samples should be taken late afternoon, early evening as d-lactate builds up during the day, after each carb containing meal, and clears during the night (as long as there is no night time feasting!).

Here are a couple of studies in relation to CFS and d-lactate, to be going on with, perhaps your doc might be interested?

This first study was looking at the bacteria in stool samples from CFS patients, and these were found to have higher than normal d-lactate producing bacteria in them. They theorised that this might account for some CFS symptoms as both conditions produce similar symptoms.

If you would like further info about d-lactate, just let me know and I'll send you some stuff, though the case studies I have are from patients with surgically shortened small bowels, which is how d-lactate normally occurs.

I'd love to read all the research you know of on this topic. Yes, please send me some of of the case studies.

I have been trying to urge my doctors to consider this possibility, but they say that d-lactic acidosis is rare and only occurs in patients with surgically shortened small bowels. I also sent several research studies (including the Sheedy paper), but no dice...